Marvel's Cloak & Dagger S01E01 "First Light" Recap

A young Tandy Bowen is picked up from ballet late by her her father Nathan after she calls his office to remind him to come get her. A young Tyrone Johnson learns that his older brother Billy and his friends were scammed out of being paid for a job they did installing a car radio. Tyrone steals the car radio back but when his brother Billy finds out he instructs him not to steal and says they will put it back but they end up pursued by cops anyway.

Tandy's father Nathan is driving home in the rain while talking on the phone while the cops pursue Billy and Tyrone to a construction site. The Roxxon Gulf Platform explodes which distracts Nathan and causes him to crash the car and send it over the bridge into the water. The explosion also causes Detective Connors to "accidentally" shoot Billy, sending him falling into the water. Tyrone jumps in after him, desperate to save his brother. A strange energy force shoots out of rig which gifts Tany and Tyrone the powers of light and dark, and the two even join together to hold hands.

Years later, Tandy is involved in schemes with her boyfriend Liam to rob rich people. She goes home with one mark that she chats up at a club and drugs him before letting Liam in so they can steal his various expensive items. Meanwhile Tyrone is playing high school basketball and repeatedly gets knocked down before he punches a player from the opposing team that had been the latest to knock him down. The two get into a fight on the court that ends when one of his teammates pulls him off.

Tandy sneaks back into an abandoned building where she stays instead of living with her mother Melissa. She is revealed to have a habit of snorting prescription medication. Melissa's lawyer boyfriend Greg is working on a case against Roxxon, and is prone to coming home drunk. In a flashback it's revealed that the oil explosion rig was pinned on Nathan, as Roxxon claims that he went rogue on some off-the-books experiment.

Tandy is angry at Liam for getting scammed out a larger profit from their latest robbery and he tells her there's a party happening later in the woods. Meanwhile, Tyrone gets invited to the same party by a girl from school. Tandy later returns home when she knows that her mother is out in order to put some items into a hidden bag where she keeps various items stashed, including a cash stash, prescription drugs, and other important personal items.

Tandy and Tyrone meet at the party in the woods. She spills her drink on his jacket, and the two introduce themselves without knowing that they have met each other before. Tyrone prepares to buy his date a drink when he realises that Tandy stole his wallet. He chases her into the woods and upon catching up to her, he grabs her hand and a beam of light comes out of hers and send them both flying back. Then both stop and stare at their hands, as hers is glowing bright while his has dark smoke coming out of it. Tandy then realises that Tyrone is the boy she met after her childhood accident and the two have an emotional moment but Tandy runs off, afraid and confused by this new manifestation of her powers. She leaves her bag behind and Tyrone picks it up before heading off.

Tyrone returns home and goes to sleep in his room only to wake up the following morning wrapped in his sheet on the roof of a building in the city. In a flashback, Tyrone goes to the police station with his parents where a police chief captain claims that Billy's body was found with drugs in his system and denies there being a cop that shot Billy, even saying that no one works at the station that matches the description Tyrone gave. But Tyrone is caught on camera stealing the car radio and the surveillance footage of it is shown to Tyrone's parents. In the present, Tyrone discovers Detective Connors heading out for a day of work on the force.

Tandy is caught at home by her mother, who returned early after quitting her job. She accidentally cut her hand and has it wrapped in a towel, which her mother wants to look at but when she grabs Tandy's hand, Tandy has a vision of her parents talking about how much they loved each other and watching Tandy dance ballet. When Tandy comes out of the vision, her mother doesn't know what Tandy is talking about when she tries to explain the vision. It's also worth noting that in the commotion, Tandy forgets to put her stash of cash and drugs back in its proper hiding place.

Later that night, Tyrone does some searching online to track down the identity of his brother's killer. His mother reprimands him for missing a day of school and her concerns about the fighting and for the alcohol she smelled on his jacket. He scolds her for putting so much pressure on him to be perfect, believing that they think they'll lose him if he isn't the perfect son but she tells him that she's worried that even if he does everything right that they'll still lose him. Tyrone is sympathetic to her grief and worry, and promises to be better.

Tandy attends a ballet with a ticket to the show that she stole from one of her wealthy marks. However, she opts to watch the show from one of the stage rigs high above the stage instead of in the audience. When she is leaving the show, she is cornered by a man named Rick whom she had robbed earlier who has his friends to back him up. Rick tries to rape Tandy alone but she summons a light dagger and stabs him with it, confused as to how it appeared and then disappeared after she used it.

Tyrone wakes up in the trunk of Connors' car with no idea how he got there and finds a stash of cocaine. Connors is a dirty cop trying to sell some drugs from the police evident locker. While he is at the deal, he opens the trunk to show the buyer some of the supply but Tyrone throws the cocaine and makes a mess of it all over Connors before running off. Connors catches up to Tyrone, whom he grabs by the throat. Tyrone has a flashback to the night Connors killed his brother and is horrified to learn that Connors talked to another cop that was with him after shooting Billy and said that he would call his uncle to cover up the situation. Tyrone gets away, hides under a tarp, and somehow teleports back to his room and finds a bullet that Connors had shot at him has also ended up in his room.

In a flashback, Tandy and Tyrone wake up the morning after the storm, having washed up on the beach and holding each other's hands. Tandy is the first to wake up and she takes Tyrone's hoodie to wear, grabs her bag, and walks off. Tandy is revealed to still have the hoodie and wears it to feel safe, while she tries to figure out how to summon the light dagger again. Tyrone as a child had woken up after Tandy left and found one of her ballet slippers among the debris around him and taken it home. Tyrone also still has the slipper and pulls it out while thinking about the mysterious girl from his childhood.

Marvel's Cloak & Dagger airs on Thursdays on Freeform at 8/7c.